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THE BUCK UP BOOK is a bound vol- 
ume of a few select articles that have ap- 
peared in "The Silent Partner" ("A 
Clean, Wholesome Magazine of Inspira- 
tion and Human Interest "). 
THE BUCK UP BOOK also contains 
several heretofore unpublished articles 
written by the Editor of "The Silent 
Partner," Mr. Van Amburgh. 
" The Silent Partner " is not sold on news 
stands or by agents. It must be ordered 
direct. 

A sample copy of "The Silent Partner," 
the little magazine of Good Will and 
Good Cheer, will be mailed to you with- 
out cost and with the Editor's compli- 
ments, if you will please address " The 
Silent Partner," 200 Fifth Avenue, New 
York City. 



-^i^L.<^^'!^^I^^^^^S>^ 




THE 

BUCK UP 

BOOK 



BY 



F. D. VAN AMBURGH 



First Editloa 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE SILENT PARTNER CO. 

200 Fifth Avenue, 
NEW YORK CITY 







<^ 



Copyright, 1918 
By F. D. Van Amburgh 



DEC 30 i9!8 
©ci.Aru)8748 



TO 

the Memory of Our Boys, and to those 
whose Self-Sacrificing Service and Devo- 
tion to Duty vdll live afresh in the ever- 
growing, never-aging Gratitude of all 
Americans. 



CONTENTS 

Know Thyself 13 

Wild-Eyed Optimism ....... 19 

Cleannness 25 

Mother 29 

Right Enthusiasm 35 

What I Call Poverty 41 

Hope Sees a Star 47 

White Crows 51 

How Far Will You Go? 57 

Fear Fear 63 

What Is Courage? 69 

The Baby 75 

Ann Hathaway*s Husband 79 

Home Happiness 87 

The Star of Destiny 9^ 



The Earnest Man 97 

The Mind and Medicine loi 

Be Sure 107 

Great Men iii 

The Surest Way 115 

Died Without Thinking 121 

Unconsciously Measured 125 

Thrift 129 

A Careless Epitaph 137 

A Tip on Courtship 141 

Lost in the Mob 145 

The Long Promiser 149 

When We Were Boys 153 

Afterword I57 




FOREWORD 




|T was evening. A body bent 
with the trials of life — a man 
past middle age — had just 
forded a swift, swollen, uncer- 
tain stream; and when I saw 
him he was earnestly working, 
patiently building a footbridge out of drift- 
wood — building a small span over the very 
stream he had just crossed. 
And I said to him : " Friend, why do you 
build a bridge? You are safe on the other 
side. The evening of your Life is here. 
You will never retrace your steps. You must 
go on — on. Forever. 

The old man, who had laid pontoon bridges 
for Posterity all his life, replied : " True, I 
never expect to go over this trail again; but, 
you know, I've a Son that's coming this way." 
The author of this little work has been build- 
ing bridges for years. Not for Posterity, but 
for People Present. 

He has been trying to help his neighbor's son 
— the boy next door. 



The The author believes there are two trails in 

Buck Up Life. One trail leads along the foothills, 
Book through the valley and down into the swamps 

of Despair, where those who travel are for- 
ever looking over their shoulders in trembling 
and fear. 

The other trail, you will find, is higher up the 
hill, and it leads to the very Apex of Ambi- 
tion — up, up where the light lingers even 
when the sun is down. 

For years the trail of the author's Life led him 
to the very crest of the mountain — left him 
at an altitude often above the clouds. 
Literally " living in the clouds " loans inspira- 
tion. It lifts the horizon of Hope and extends 
the viewpoint. 

And while he was living in the miracle of 
mist that gathers over the great granite moun- 
tains of the marvelous West — while living in 
silence and mystery — the author would often 
awaken at dawn and watch with eagerness 
the wavering lines of range after range that 
resemble breakers on the shore. 
You say : " Yes, the author is one of those 
Optimists that lives in the clouds." 
To have your feet on the rugged rocks and 
still live in the clouds teaches one to be More 
than an optimist. 

If there be any virtue in the efforts of the 
author, it is to produce a Sensible, Reasonable 

10 



book of Practical Philosophy and not Wild- The 
Eyed Optimism. Buck Up 

Into the Life of every human, at some time. Book 
come sorrow, bitterness, disappointment, dis- 
couragement, doubt, perplexity, apprehension, 
fear, hate, envy, jealousy, self-pity — all de- 
mons of Thought. 

Then illness and disease are likely to intrude 
and do all the damage permitted. 
Life, under the baleful influences of these un- 
desirable elements, becomes drab — colorless 
— hopeless — joyless; but, most of all. Use- 
less. 

Uselessness is a crime against oneself and 
against humanity. 

In The Buck Up Book you will find many 
ways and means to eliminate these undesirable, 
these Deadly Elements; for The Buck Up 
Book is full of Hope — the hope that is 
founded on the Practical Philosophy of every- 
day, common-place living and doing. 
The Buck Up Book will lead you away from 
the bogs, the low spots, lead you away from 
the marshlands of Life, up where the night sky 
is full of bright stars and where the day is 
clear and pleasant. 

The whole idea in this book is to get you to 
look up, think up, brush up — to get you to 
Buck Up. 

To get you to make an honest, a new and 

II 



clearer Analysis of Yourself, to help you to 
start on a New Trail, and to encourage you 
to Keep Going. 

In this work the reader will find considerable 
space devoted to the Mind. The author be- 
lieves the Mind is a wonderful healer or a de- 
cided destroyer, depending on the attitude of 
the Mind. 

Hypodermics of pure water have put millions 
to sleep. Bread pills have performed almost 
miracles. Yet these truths do not for one 
instant discount the value of the conscienti- 
ous physician, the dependable druggist; nor 
do they lessen the loyalty of the experienced 
nurse. 

The author has tried to show the value of all 
valuable factors that get humans to Buck Up. 
Life is a battle of brains, and every Mind 
needs encouragement. The Buck Up Book is 
presented to the public, in a Crisis, to help 
men Up the Hill. 

It introduces science, creeds and cults for the 
purpose of Adaptation — not for the plan of 
Adoption. 

It will rely implicitly on the results one is rea- 
sonably sure to get from Hard Work, Horse 
Sense and Honest Purpose. 

12 



KNOW THYSELF 



This wise injunction, " Know Thyself,'* 
intimately concerns the reader. The 
subject was inspired by a personal ac- 
quaintance with John L. Mench. 



Mix a lot of Will with a certain amount 
of Skill. Stir well, and take a big dose 
before you leave the house in the morn- 
ing. If your system rebels at the treat- 
ment, you don't need medicine. What 
you want is a Swift Kick between the 
henhouse and the barn. 



The Buck Up Book has been written to broaden 
your mind with the Ambition and Ability to 
investigate Systematically and Honestly all that 
comes under your observation in the life of 
others and particularly in your own life. 
Common sense is not the result of education, 
it is in Spite of it. 




I HAT you may do your own 
Work well — Know Thyself. 
That you may work with oth- 
ers Successfully — Know Thy- 
self. 

A careful, conscientious meas- 
urement of Number One is absolutely neces- 
sary for success. 

Until you know more of Yourself, little will 
you know of Others. 

Until you can control yourself, manage your- 
self, you may expect a Small Salary for man- 
aging others. 

15 



The Self-knowledge is the point where Wisdom 

Buck Up centers. 

Book Now that your mind is directed to a most im- 
portant thought, let me warn you to love your- 
self Last. 

So many men flatter themselves, fool them- 
selves, believe that they are Exceptional. 
The supreme fall of all falls is when a man 
Loves himself most. 

Then again, a man can take a Terrible Tumble 
when he doubts himself. 

The weak link in any man's life is the one that 
holds his head firmly with Personal Flattery — 
the link that chains him to the idea that he is 
very wise. 

Why do men discover faults in other men so 
promptly and Perfection in themselves so 
surely? 

Why is the average man a Small man? 
Why is it that a man will acknowledge some 
one unimportant fault? 

Is it a plan to overshadow some more serious 
personal Defect? 

Is it a scheme to throw the flashlight in the 
other fellow's face? 

Are you willing to come out, after reading this 
article and tell to the world your most flag -"nt 
faults? 

I think not. >► 

i6 



To acknowledge your weakness to the world, The 
after you have discovered it, is a Modesty too Buck Up 
much to expect of man. Book 

To tell your faults to your friends is ingenu- 
ousness. 

To preach to the world of your Faults is 
proof that you are out of the clutch of your 
Faults. 

To be conscious of no fault in yourself is one 
of the Greatest individual faults in all the 
world. 

The Buck Up Book has been written to 
broaden your mind with the Ambition and 
Ability to investigate Systematically and Hon- 
estly all that comes under your observation 
in the life of others and particularly in your 
own life. 

Common sense is not the result of education, 
it is in Spite of it. 

The grandest, the greatest education in all the 
world is to have the Common Sense, Disci- 
plined by Experience, to study and Know 
Thyself. 




17 



The sun goes down at night and submits 

to being obscure. 

But just as sure as the clock ticks at a 

certain moment in the morning, up comes 

the sun. 

Mist and cloud may obscure the sun 

again, but in God's own way the sun is 

Sure to shine Somewhere. 

When things look dark and discouraging, 

keep in mind the Regular Order of 

Events. 



WILD-EYED OPTIMISM 



It is better to be a bankrupt in sunshine 
than a millionaire in shadow. Better to 
be broke with your appreciation of living, 
than to be rich with the regret of having 
to wait for death 




I believe that there is a bigger word, a better 
word, than Optimism. And it is — Courage. 

PTIMISM is said to be the sun- 
shine of the soul. 
The optimist seldom carries an 
umbrella, and you know it 
sometimes rains. 
Years ago the author of this 
book lived on the desert of Disappointment 
and prospected for gold with a bunch of wild- 
eyed optimists. On the desert it was all sun- 
shine. 

My suggestion to you is to have little in com- 
mon with the Optimist. He is at best a con- 
tinuous performance of Hope. 
The Optimist is like the wise old owl that can 
see only in the dark — that can see only while 
the normal man is supposed to be sleeping. 
The Optimist is the theorist who transports 
you from a world of actuality into a paradise 
prepared for the tread of the fool. 
The Optimist will clutch a straw and claim 

21 



The he has caught a St. Croix River raft of white 

Buck Up pine. 

Book He gets all flushed up, gets all excited over 

colors that he finds in the prospector's pan 
— colors that prove to the experienced eye to 
be nothing but iron pyrites. 
The Optimist believes that everything is 
bound to come out all right even without 
work. He says, to himself: " Let 'er slide." 
You say this is severe criticism on the Optim- 
ist and not well founded. Now, let us see if 
this criticism really lacks foundation. 
Webster tells us that Optimism is " the doc- 
trine that everything is ordered for the best." 
Now wouldn't this definition of optimism jar 
you? 

In a former book written by the author of 
The Buck Up Book — a book called "By 
the Side of the Road " — you will find this 
significant sentence : " Between the Optimist 
who feels that he is sailing in a safe channel 
and the Pessimist who refuses to row — I say, 
between these two extremes in human nature, 
we have the Normal Man." 
No! The Optimist has no charm for me. I 
have paid for his golden dream. 
Optimism is founded on the belief of the Fatal- 
ist: "Everything is ordered for the best." 
So, you see, we have misused the word Optim- 

22 



ism, or rather, misunderstood the word Op- 
timism. Any belief that has every goose a 
swan is beyond my power of comprehension. 
I believe that there is a bigger word, a better 
word, than Optimism. And it is — Courage. 
Courage creates the resolute heart. Courage 
understands that Life is bigger than any one 
battle. Courage intelligently contemplates all 
obstacles. 

Years ago there was a knocker on the front 
door. Later it required a pull at the door- 
bell to attract attention. To-day you punch 
an electric button. 

The knocker is out of date. A pull is passe. 
It now takes an electrified punch. That is 
why I take issue with the late Senator Ingalls 
and his verse, " Opportunity " — Opportunity 
that knocks but once. 

The only way you can get the door of Op- 
portunity open is to Push, not knock. 



The 

Buck Up 
Book 




23 



A smile is the Passport to Prosperity. 
It promotes business; and incidentally 
business is an important occupation. 
Besides the profits we find that follow a 
smile, there is a lot of satisfaction in Liv- 
ing a pleasant life. 



CLEANNESS 



Cleanness: a thought suggested by E. 
St. Clair. 

The impertinence, the impudence of ex- 
pression should be charged to the author 
and not to Mr. St. Clair. 



Rivet this fact in your brain box: No 
man can gain success and stay a success 
without the public is with him. All men 
are public servants, and for this reason 
they occupy a public trust. 
When the public loans a man success, it is 
because he Deserves it. 




The great value of education, the wonderful 
worth of ambition — both advantages suiler 
Defeat in the presence of a personality that 
lacks Cleanness. 

[LEANNESS of personality is a 
Certificate of Character. 
There are exceptions to all 
rules, and this rule is no ex- 
ception. 

Humans who have a due rev- 
erence for God, for society and for themselves 
are almost always conspicuous for their Clean- 
ness. 

The off -scum, the hog-wash, the dandruff - 
dirty of society are always in the dependent 
class. 

The grimy, the filthy and the soiled fill our 
Prisons. 

The untidy, uncombed, unclean accept our 
Charity. 

Personal appearance has a lot to do with a 
man's chances in life. When a man gets 
smutty and dusty, folks will Sidestep him. 

27 



The Let your teeth get overlaid with yellow moss, 

Buck Up the back of your neck covered with untrimmed 
Book underbrush, your finger nails uneven and 
banked with greased mud, let your shoes get 
sloppy and your trousers frayed at the bottom, 
and Nobody Wants You. 
Remember this: Ambition will not dwell 
with Dirt. Virtue will not remain Unwashed. 
So long as the rivers run and the scavengers 
gather soap grease, there is Hope. 
I know men personally who pretend to be re- 
spectable, and to a degree they are responsi- 
ble. But these men, when they get warmed 
up, smell like a basket of Soiled Linen. 
They are actually Dirty. When they remove 
their collars in the barber shop you can see 
the black streaks around their necks. They 
get shaved almost every day, and this is the 
Extent of their washing — from the neck up. 
The cost or the cut of a suit of clothes cannot 
compensate for the easily obtainable require- 
ment — Cleanness. A silk shirt on a dirty 
man will not answer as a passport. It looks 
like a morning gown on a razor-back hog in 
the hills of Arkansas. 

The great value of education, the wonderful 
worth of ambition — both advantages suffer 
Defeat in the presence of a personality that 
lacks Cleanness. 

28 



MOTHER 



No silver can compare with a Mother's 
soft white hair. No lines are half so 
beautiful as those in the furrowed face 
of your Mother. No sculptor can dream 
of such beauty as in those patient hands. 
When you go home to-night, take this 
storm-tossed soul close to your big heart, 
and say the things you would want her to 
know if she were resting in the front 
room, with sunken, sightless eyes, and 
cold, white lips. 

Give her a Rosary of Kind Words now! 
She will coimt them over a dozen times 
to-morrow. 




It is at a Mother's grave that one finds more 
outward things and more inward thoughts teem- 
ing with assurances of immortality than any 
other place on earth. 

)F it were possible for the writer 
to pluck the rarest flowers of 
rhetoric, the handsomest roses 
in all remembrance of thought, 
I would fashion, in one Crown 
of Love and Affection, the 
most Beautiful Tribute in all the world, and 
place it tenderly on the brow of — Mother. 
If it were possible for me to paint on the canvas 
of sentiment the most marvelous event since 
the infant King in the starlit Manag'er of 
Bethlehem, it would be a scene where God 
opens the Great Gate and gives to the world 
that Wonderful Woman — Mother. 
In the past, men, in their pressing march for 
position or prosperity, have often neglected 
their Dearest Friend on earth — Mother. 
Men in their Mad Rush for Money have for- 
gotten to take a little time and cheer the few 
remaining days of Mother. 

31 



The But this War has changed the whole situation. 

Buck Up Men are beginning to understand better the 
Book value, the incomparable Gift of a Mother's 
presence in the Home. 

Did I say, " Men are beginning to understand 
better " ? No ! They are beginning to un- 
derstand themselves better. 
From to-day on there will be room for but 
One Queen in this world, and that queen will 
be — Mother. 

Your Mother may be bent in body, trembling 
in thought, but she is your Mother — she is 
the same sacrificing, devoted, dear old Mother 
that you loved so when you were a boy. 
Her opinions of things may not always sound 
scientifically correct, but you may rest as- 
sured that her thoughts are morally right. 
She may venture some old-fashioned idea in 
preference to some modem method, and her 
plans may look like the longer way round, 
but you will find they are the Sure way. 
Can't you remember when your Mother used 
to clean and cook for you, and how she darned 
your stockings and mended your ball? Can 
you recall the times when she would get up 
at night and cover your restless body with 
the quilt that she made by hand, and how she 
listened for your croupy cough? Of course 
you can't, but she did this a Thousand Times. 
When you were a boy she had time to listen 
32 



to your fairy tales. At least, she took the ^^^ 
time. Are you willing to listen to her now? Buck Up 
Can you remember when you started out for Book 
your first job? Who smiled and helped you 
on the way? Who was the last one to say 
some encouraging word ? — Mother. 
She probably did without dresses that you 
might appear before your fellows unashamed. 
On the pillow of this wonderful woman's 
breast you have slept, and from her Life you 
have Lived. 

Over your life to-day hangs this high and pure 
Guiding Star, even though you may be com- 
pelled to listen for her voice through the long 
corridor of receding years. 
The Potential Power of the American army is 
— Mother. 

The Rock on which Humanity must rest is — 
Mother. 

The one word that brings back all that is best 
in All of us is — Mother. 
Mother ! Your heart loaned the pulsations of 
my heart. My soul is but part of your soul. 
My body is but part of your dear body. 
Mother! You incomparable, you Wonderful 
Woman — you mercy of God. 
Life may loan to us all so many beautiful 
things: roses, rainbows, sunsets in thousand 
lots, stars by the tens of thousands — life may 
loan us a dear old Dad, faithful brothers, sym- 

33 



The pathetic sisters and friends by the score — 

Buck Up but never, never but once will life loan us a 
Book Mother! 

How the thoughts of this individual creation of 
God differs from all His other earthly gifts ! 
No matter how much trouble may come to 
you to-day, think how patiently and lovingly 
your Mother would untangle the threads — 
think with what infinite patience she played 
her part — her important part. 
Not long ago I stood in the Silence of my 
Mother's grave. The radiant moon sent its 
silver-toned shadows across the green, low 
mound. The spring rains had washed away 
the snows of winter, and all about were the 
season's transfiguration. 
It is at a Mother's grave that one finds more 
outward things and more inward thoughts 
teeming with assurances of immortality than 
any other place on earth. 
It was at my Mother's grave, in a simple little 
churchyard back in the country, that I could 
see the light of an Endless Day. 



34 



RIGHT ENTHUSIASM 



There are different degrees of enthusi- 
asm, different brands. 
The author feels that M. L. Parker has 
selected the best brand — " Right Enthu- 
siasm." 



You will find that the figures that will 
foretell the total of your coming success 
are in proportion to your present inter- 
est in some one line of work or profes- 
sion. 

Your desire to excel in some one line is 
sure to stimulate you to more action, 
inspire you to do better Work. 
Your success does not depend wholly 
on your ability, but it depends a lot on 
the particular Job you pick out to do. 
One can find the job that fits him sooner 
than he can conform to the Requirements 
of the job. 

My suggestion is this: Find the job that 
fits you, that will furnish sufficient incen- 
tive for you to do your Level Best. See 
that the job offers plenty of Opportunity. 
Satisfy yourself that the job needs You. 
Then take hold of the job with both 
hands; get back of the job with both feet; 
put your heart, your head and your every 
hope in the thing, and then Do the thing. 




You seldom see a man that is full of gimp 
and go, full of the fire of Right Enthusiasm, 
after he has reached the third degree of calm 
and calculating prosperity. 

IIGHT ENTHUSIASM is the 
biggest and the best brand. 
Right Enthusiasm is intoxi- 
cated individual interest; and 
this intimately personal inter- 
est must be established by 
Necessity, that one may win permanently any- 
thing worth while. 

Enthusiasm of the ordinary kind is bounded 
on the north by Ambition, on the east by De- 
sire, on the south by Hope, and on the west 
by Passion. 

Right Enthusiasm is bounded on the north, 
east, south and west by Necessity. 
Right Enthusiasm gives a man the punch, the 
prod, the real reason for having to go on. 
It puts a new point on a bayonet in the bat- 
tle of business. It puts a new slant on suc- 
cess. It concerns all the points of compass in 
our calculations. 

37 



^^^ Right Enthusiasm is the enthusiasm born of 

Buck Up having to Do. 

Book You say — and I have often said — " What we 

want in others in a disposition to want to do." 
The man who must do and then fails to do will 
probably never want to do. 
You seldom see a man that is full of gimp and 
go, full of the fire of Right Enthusiasm, after 
he has reached the third degree of calm and 
calculating prosperity. 

The Enthusiasm of Necessity is the answer 
to a fear of adversity. 

It is a lucky thing for you and for me that we 
have to hike, otherwise we would lie on our 
lazy backs under an apple tree, with our 
mouths wide open, and wait for the fruit to 
fall. 

What a world this would be if we were all 
permitted to slack! Many would slack. 
Duty is not nearly so strong as Necessity. 
Necessity must Do things. Duty is often 
asleep at the switch. 

Necessity knows no way out. It is the spur 
that has goaded great men. 
The iron hand of Necessity commands; her 
stem decree is supreme. 

Fortunate indeed is the human that must Do 
things. Unfortunate is the man that has 
money enough to be idle. Money makes too 
large a catalogue for the things a man wants. 
38 



When Necessity hoops in a man's Hopes and, The 
through many experiments, he touches on ev- Buck Up 
ery side until he learns the arc of his possi- Book 
bilities^ then and not until then have you a 
safe, a sensible, a secure man. 
The point is. Found your Enthusiasm Right, 
for the greatest dejection follows a fever of 
Wrong Enthusiasm. 

No man can play feverishly, pay extravagantly, 
waste his resources at night, and then come to 
the office, the store, the plant, in the morning 
with what is called Right Enthusiasm — even 
though necessity knocks, prods, pushes or 
pulls. 

Debauch, extravagance, waste of time only 
add more load to Necessity. 
For this very reason. Right Enthusiasm is 
quite as much a physical as a mental prod- 
uct. 

What an awful load Necessity must carry 
when it has to tote the lazy, shiftless, indiffer- 
ent man! 

What a punch behind the individual that 
knows he Must! 




39 



You say to yourself, and sometimes to 
others: "Never mind; I'll win to-mor- 
row." 

And to-morrow you say the same thing. 
You make new designs, but the effort is 
not continuous. Then you make New 
Failures. 

By and by the time of designing is Past. 
And here we face the terrible truth — 
the time of designing is Past! 



WHAT I CALL POVERTY 



My ambition is not to get where I can 

take it easy. 

My desire is to continue to have the fun 

of doing things. 

I am glad to get away from the office 

at 5, and always eager to come in the 

morning at 8:30. 

It is not my prayer to have a task equal 

to my power. 

My hope is always to have Power equal 

to my Task. 

The true source of Genuine Happiness 

is accomplishing something Worth While. 

Arriving is the End. 




I would rather see a man storm heaven itself 
in his folly than witness a living dead one of 
despair mourn at the mound of Past Mistakes. 



I HE colossal error of life is for 
one to get discouraged. It is 
either the conclusion of the 
sick, the abandonment of ambi- 
tion, the rule of the reckless or 
the fate of the Fool. 
To get discouraged is to invite your own house 
to fall on your own head. It is to add an- 
other Handicap. 

When we contemplate the unforeseen future, 
when we consider the many pleasant hours of 
the past, what right have we to be discouraged 
or to get the blues? 

Nothing could make the writer give up except 
the open page of the book that will record the 
hour of his death. And even then, if he were 
plowing, he would continue to plow. 
Why wait for death? 

43 



The If you have failed to insure your life, to make 

Buck Up your will, to provide for your Family, to pro- 
Book tect your bank, you are speculating with the 
chances against you. 

Getting blue argues a defective spirit, a lazi- 
ness of resolution. It is an evidence that you 
need a long march. 

No one has any use for the bilious-looking in- 
dividual. The world has no place for the 
Quitter, the Slacker, the Discouraged. 
To-day it's go ahead or get off the trail. It's 
keep up or keep down. It's Sink or Swim. 
The world from to-day on will be saved by 
Hope. 

From to-day on, the discouraged, depressed, 
the d own-in- the-mouth individual will receive 
small sympathy in the presence of the brave. 
. A well man, a young man, will get a swift 
kick in the slats and be told to go to work. 
We will reserve our sentiments and sympathy 
for soldiers who have Served. 
And it is my suggestion here that everybody, 
everywhere, separate the man that Serves 
from the man that slacks. It is my suggestion 
that you steer clear of the discouraged, for 
they paralyze action. 

From to-day on, the world will look with 
favor on the man that will look up, think up. 
Buck Up — the man that goes on like the 
torrent, never looking back. 

44 



I would rather see a man storm heaven itself The 

in his folly than witness a living dead one of Buck Up 

despair mourn at the mound of Past Mis- Book 

takes. 

Men who shiver, tremble, shudder and shake 

over the future ; men who hesitate, falter and 

flunk over the reverses of to-day, will find little 

consolation or pity to-morrow. 

The Buck Up Book believes in placing an 

object before the reader, and the object is 

this — Poverty. 

The inevitable consequence of being poor is 

Dependence. 

Poverty is the one secure thing in society. 

To have nothing in the way of cash is not what 

I call Poverty. 

To Be Nothing is Poverty. 




45 



What men Hope to get is what seems to 
make men Happy. What men have and 
hold is the cause of most misery. We 
all see in the past the happiest hours in 
our lives, and most of us look upon the 
future with anxiety, albeit with enthusi- 
asm. All of us look upon the Present as 
full of Trouble. 

Not one man in twenty is happy over to- 
day. Happiness is a Habit that can be 
Acquired by a bit of right thinking, by a 
little Practical Philosophy. 
When you realize that life is worth more 
than all else, and that to-day holds for 
you more of life than does to-morrow, 
you should appreciate more fully to-day. 



HOPE SEES A STAR 



Self-Directed action, self-governed intelli- 
gence, self-satisfied conscience — and 
here you have a man who wtll help him- 
self and Help Others. 




**But in the night of death Hope sees a star, 
and listening Love can hear the rustling of a 
wing." 



ITH all the force and audacity 
of his splendid oratory, Robert 
G. IngersoU opposed Chris- 
tianity, attacked the Bible, and 
questioned the existence of a 
hell and the personal nature of 
Deity. And for his thoughts, put in lecture 
form, he was well paid. 

Then Time led this man to the shut gate of 
Life, and there he stood, on a beautiful day in 
June, barred from his brother by the pitiless, 
inexorable hand of Death. 
Words that he had used before must have 
fallen back into his heavy heart. A sense of 
Isolation must have shrouded his soul, for out 
of the depths of doubt we find him breathing 
this beautiful tribute to Hope: 
" Life is a narrow vale between the cold and 
barren peaks of two eternities. 
" We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. 

49 



The 

Buck Up 
Book 



"We cry aloud, and the only answer is the 
echo of our wailing cry. 

** From the voiceless lips of the unreplying 
dead there comes no word. 
" But in the night of death Hope sees a star, 
and listening Love can hear the rustling of a 
wing. 

"He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking 
the approach of death for the return of health, 
whispered with his latest breath, ' I am better 
now.' 

" Let us believe, in spite of doubts and fears, 
that these dear words are true of all the count- 
less dead." 

Let a man's soul lack the spirit of Hope and 
the man, to all practical purposes, for all busi- 
ness requirements, is a lost cause. 
If it were possible for a man to see the low 
mound and the fresh dirt, he would cry for 
help, for Hope. 

Men live and defy Hope, and just before they 
die, they deplore their lack of common fore- 
sight. 




WHITE CROWS 



The master word of the world is 
" W-o-r-k." In the grasp of all great 
successes, you will see the rod of Energy 
and Efficiency. 

Work is the schoolmaster of success. 
Education is bound in textbooks. 
Knowledge is education melted down into 
the button of experience. And you know 
it is experience that men v/ant and are 
willing to pay for. 

The mentally slow man will be quickened 
by Work. The common, everyday man 
will develop into the big man through 
Work. The brilliant mind is made steady 
by Work. Work fits all classes to be 
more Fit. 



The writer of this work is your friend in dis- 
guise. The frankness of the book may lessen 
your warmth of heart toward the author, but 
if you learn from its pages the lesson of Indi- 
vidual Resnonsibility, the book will be a suc- 
cess so far as You are concerned. 




]HE grandest possible Indi- 
vidual Incentive is to be awake 
to Personal Responsibility. 
Hand in hand with every hu- 
man should walk the Three 
Degrees of Personal Worth — 
Capacity, Power and Responsibility. 
Your conscience must dictate the Duties you 
have to perform, the work you have to do. 
The point is, awaken your Conscience. Put 
a Scotch thistle under your personal Respon- 
sibility to self and to society. 
The Buck Up Book is intended to stimulate by 
a swift kick and not by pleasing platitudes. 
It matters comparatively little how much you 
like the Author. It matters much what you 
think of Yourself. 

53 



Book 



The "pjjg writer o£ this work is your friend in dis- 

^"^J guise. The frankness of the book may lessen 
your warmth of heart toward the author, but if 
you learn from its pages the lesson of Individ- 
ual Responsibility, the book will be a success 
so far as You are concerned. 
The whole thought of the author is to Con- 
struct by criticism and not destroy by condem- 
nation. 

If the book hits you where it hurts, be a good 
sport and take your medicine ! 
The worst enemy that you can encounter is 
the Flatterer. The best friend that you can 
find is the one who frankly reveals your faults. 
How true it is : A wise man flatters the weak, 
a fool flatters himself, a friend tells you the 
truth. Let me give you the Truth. 
You are where you are by what you are. 
Had you been a bigger and a better man, you 
would now be miles and miles ahead. You 
are Responsible for your results. 
Luck, Faith, Opportunity, Destiny — these 
White Crows have had nothing to do with your 
present position. 

Small men believe in the shallow word Luck. 
Strong men believe in Cause and Effect. 
The worst form of slavery is imposing upon 
your own neck the strict belief of Fate. The 
stoic believes in the unalterable course of 
events, and this is a Fatal courage. 
54 



Opportunity — and here is the word that you The 
think will stick me — Opportunity is the thing Buck Up 
a Wise man makes good in right where the Book 
Fool fell flat. 

Destiny! A birth star but not a fixed star. 
Witness: St. Helena. Destiny is what Fate 
imposes, so they say; and if this be true, why 
try? 

How silly for a man to depend on Destiny! 
How weak a man must be that relies on empty 
Chance, or what we call " Opportunity " ! 
How primitive the mind that measures all the 
Future by the yardstick of Fate ! How imma- 
ture the brain that builds on the sands of the 
shore a palace of Luck ! 

Results worth while are the answers to Intel- 
ligent Industry, Honest and Efficient Effort. 
If you would have permanent success you 
must necessarily think up, look up, Buck Up. 
It is my claim that men and women do not 
work hard enough. To Brutify action is not 
to work. Automatic effort is but Slavery. 
What I mean by work is Cooperation of head, 
hands and heart. The mind must cooperate 
with the muscles to bring out the Best. 
Even though you rest your body, keep your 
brain headed in the right direction and keep 
it Working. 
The human who regards an effort as mere 

55 



The work will never rise higher than his two hind 

Buck Up legs will support him. 

Book You were not made for work : work was made 

for you. 

Work is the most natural, normal thing in the 
world to do. 

Until you like your Work and elect to excel, 
until you look upon your Work as a Real 
Opportunity to get away eventually from 
small service, until you enter the contest of 
Life to Win, you will always Work. 
This is why I say : Keep Busy. 
When humans are idle, they think of so many 
things that hinder ! The nurse of naughtiness 
is nothing-to-do-until-to-morrow. 
When a woman's mind or a man's mind is not 
on knitting, the probabilities are the woman or 
the man will get Morbid or Merry. 
Let a man get out of work, and he will soon 
find where the Fools are holding a holiday. 
It is almost impossible for a human to be Hon- 
est, Poor and Idle all in the same breath. 



56 



HOW FAR WILL YOU GO? 



Men develop. John D. Rockefeller was a 
clerk. But instead of spending all his en- 
ergy in trying to fool the boss, he devoted 
his best efforts to trying to Be the boss. 
He did not stick to sticking postage 
stamps on envelopes, or opening oil 
wells; but he set about to construct a per- 
fect organization, a smooth corporation 
of muscle and of Mind; an organization 
that would work when he was not watch- 
ing. He developed. If you are laying 
brick, keeping books, selling goods, you 
have the same chance to develop — prob- 
ably better chances than many men. 
Lincoln left the log cabin. Garfield 
trudged on the towpath. Your boss 
probably started where you are — prob- 
ably below where you are. Remember, 
in trying to fool the boss, you fool Your- 
self. 




What The Buck Up Book is trying to accom- 
plish is a mental method of Neutralizing Dis- 
couragement. 



)0 man will go past the point 
where he thinks he will. 
When a man thinks he can't, 
he stops. When he decides he 
will, he usually goes ahead; 
and he continues to go ahead 

until his mind hesitates or halts, and then the 

distance seems far enough. 

There is not a line in this book intended to 

Create Courage. The entire book has one 

special purpose — to Encourage Courage. 

The American people have plenty of courage 

— all they require is recognition. 

You like to have your work appreciated, and 

you are but one of one hundred millions. 

So you see the idea of Encouraging Courage 

is a big one ! 

Before you start out on the trail of life, let me 

call you back and fortify you with this im- 

59 



The portant thought : Success is half-brother to a 

Buck Up bunch of blunders. 

Book In other words, in perfectly plain words, when 

you feel disappointed over some expensive 
mistake, why get discouraged? 
Until you make mistakes you will never know 
how, when or where to steer clear of mistakes. 
You do not want to know where the rocks 
are. You want to know where the rocks are 
not. You do not want to sail over rocks. 
You want to sail in the channel. 
When a responsibility has been heavy enough, 
when an emergency has been great enough, 
when a motive has been large enough to call 
out the best in Americans, history has had 
another opportunity of recording some great 
result. 

I repeat, we do not need to Create Courage — 
we need to Encourage Courage. 
What The Buck Up Book is trying to accom- 
plish is a mental method of Neutralizing Dis- 
couragement. 

Everyone is sure to experience a mental de- 
pression, an hour when hope drops, when the 
idea of a bright future looks drab and dull. 
Humans must have, at times, some bigger con- 
ception, some brighter possibility put before 
them. 

Few, very few, can carry the extra load of a 
60 



trying day without looking backward to some The 

stimulating sentiment, or looking forward to Buck Up 

some inspiring Hope. Book 

The power of expecting something, or the 

memory of having had something, is the spark 

plug that starts us on again after we feel that 

we cannot go another peg. 

The point is, when you are blue, get your mind 

off the present as rapidly as you can. Think 

of the things worth Working for, worth Living 

for. 

There are so many Wonderful things in this 

world, right now worth fighting for — Life, 

Love, Success, Home and the Dear Ones in it. 

You are no slacker — brace up, look up. Buck 

Up! 

During our late artillery argument with the 

South, a certain man called at the White 

House and asked President Lincoln for a pass 

to Richmond. 

Lincoln looked up, smiled, and then said : " I 

should like to help you, but, you see, I have 

been trying for two years to pass two hundred 

and fifty thousand men to Richmond." 

Eventually the man reached Richmond, and 

you ask me how. The man joined the Army 

and Marched with his comrades to the city of 

his Ambition. 



6i 



The power to do, the patience to endure, 
can only be acquired by Hard Work. 
Work is the pledge of a comfortable old 
age, the guarantee of a decent middle life. 
A common perversion of the truth is the 
statement that man is a slave to work. 
On the contrary, man would be a slave 
to some base practice without work. 
Occupation, employment, business — 
these are the things that keep you out of 
mischief. 

Every time that I have nothing to do, I 
find something to do that harms me, 



FEAR FEAR 



Fear, the tremendous, immense, marvel- 
ous monster, whose eye is out. 
Herbert P. Pearson has taught me that 
Fear is but a tax levied on the weak. 



You have probably watched a one-armed 
boy play ball; you have undoubtedly seen 
a one-legged man in a foot race; but 
neither of these handicapped humans is a 
Champion. What is holding You back? 




Just as soon as you begin to worry, just as soon 
as you begin to fear something, apply the Anti- 
dote. Appeal to the same great law to which 
the Origin of Fear is due — the law of Self- 
Preservation. 

I EAR begins at babyhood and 
tugs at us all through life. 
Fear is the earliest instinct. 
Fear is a painful emo- 
tion and produces a primitive 
agitation. This truth is what 
prompted Emerson to say : " Fear always 
comes from ignorance." 

I would not be so foolish as to advise you to 
whistle in order to keep away fear, or to laugh 
that you may avoid some soul-chilling terror. 
It is Human to fear. 

But this is not the fear that I am trying to 
feature. 

One of the Deadliest things in life is Dread, 
Apprehension, Alarm. These words, in com- 
parison with ** soul-chilling terror," seem 
small ; but remember this : we have dread with 
us all the time. We go " over the top," do 

65 



The some thrilling thing, but once or twice in a 

Buck Up lifetime. 

Book To fear a situation in business, in life, is but 

Foresight. To fear everyday things is to be 
Fortified. 

You have lived so long, and the bugaboo of 
fear has not put you off the map. 
When the nightmare of fear, when the hob- 
goblin of alarm, when the ghost of scare give 
you a great sinking spell, let me tell you why : 
When you get all worked up over some busi- 
ness situation ; when things look like indelible 
indigo; when ever5rthing seems to be going 
out and nothing coming in; when you get 
panicky, perplexed; when you are actually 
Afraid, you probably have Good Reason to be 
afraid. 

When you fear something, there's a Reason. 
A good man never gets panicky over the loss 
of a paper of pins. 

The logic that teaches that a man should not 
fear springs from the brain of a bug. 
It is all foolishness, silly rot, to say that a man 
should not fear. The biggest and best busi- 
ness men in the world get panicky at times. 
To fear is a natural sequence to success. To 
be able to meet fear face to face and knock its 
block off is possible. 
Let me tell you how: 
66 



Just as soon as you begin to worry, just as The 
soon as you begin to fear something, apply the Buck Up 
Antidote. Appeal to the same great law to Book 
which the Origin of Fear is due — the law of 
Self-Preservation. 

Bring yourself to understand that fear is sure 
to damage you physically; and just as soon 
as you get this fact firmly fixed in your top- 
piece the mind will throw off fear. 
Fear, in other words, is instantly avoided the 
moment you fear Fear. 

The Buck Up Book does not elect to tell you 
how to do. It does aspire to get you to Want 
to do. 

The best way to get a man or a woman to want 
to do is to reason of the advantages of doing a 
thing worth while. 

Voltaire says : " Systems exercise the mind, 
but faith enlightens and guides it." 
Let us exercise the mind a little on the subject 
of Fear. 

Men frequently take a tonic for the body ; and 
you know that there are more strong bodies 
than there are powerful minds. 
The author speaks from a personal experi- 
ence — from an intimate knowledge of this 
Truth. 

With all my unbounded energy, with all my 
unlimited enthusiasm, I frequently find it nec- 

67 



The essary to read something bracing — to take a 

Buck Up Mental Tonic. 

Book When the thoughts of failure come creeping 

into my mind, when the poison of doubt or the 
epidemic of indifference gets hold of my old 
think-tank, out I go into the field of fresh 
thought with a Book, with a Friend or with 
the Flowers. 

When doubt gets a grip on your mind, on your 
mental make-up, refuse to listen to the theory 
of possible failure. 

In the event of your feeling discouraged, re- 
member this : Be positive in your thoughts of 
success. Say to yourself : " I will ! " Never 
let the little word " try " be added to the abso- 
lute, unqualified, positive statement " I will." 
You exercise your body to make it strong. 
The same rule applies to the mind. Every 
time you say " I will," you create a new Men- 
tal Force. 

When you say " I will try," you acknowledge 
to the world that you are weak in your belief 
that you will. 
The point is. Fear Fear. 



68 



WHAT IS COURAGE? 



We read of the imposing march of a 
mighty army, of the roar and the explo- 
sion, of the clatter of cavalry — we read 
of men who have risen to the full height 
of a public occasion; but stories of the 
lonely sentinel remain unsung. 
Two thousand years ago, when nature 
was in revolt, when Caesar's own army 
could not check the convulsions of a 
Higher Power, there stood, 'mid the vol- 
canic ashes that were falling thick as the 
snowflakes, a lonely sentinel. 
And when the granite archways of the 
great, Roman buildings tumbled, he re- 
mained at his post. Rushing past him 
were the citizens. But the servant of the 
people remained to fill orders. 
Recently they uncovered the petrified, 
peerless, lonely sentinel. For two thou- 
sand years he stood beneath the ruins 
of a Roman city — stood on Guard! 
There are sentinels at sea, sentinels in the 
mines, sentinels on the railroads, in the 
shops — sentinels of a home — and these 
posts call for the same Fortitude, the 
same Courage, the same Loyalty to the 
Legion of Honor! 

No matter how humble your position. 
Stick to your Post! 




If you refuse to Buck Up, cheer up, keep up for 
your own sake, Buck Up for the sake of others. 

I OUR AGE is many-sided; and 
this leaves room for the ques- 
tion : " What is Courage ? " 
On investigation, this question 
will prove a subject worthy of 
careful analysis. 
There is one brand of Courage that we all 
recognize. It faces front, goes forward, and 
calls: "Come on!" 

Then there is the opposite form of human 
frailty, and we call it Fear. 
Fear paralyzes purpose, gets wounded in the 
back, falls to the earth on its face and there 
gets in a good man's way. 
The next form of Courage worthy of consid- 
eration is that Courage which Obeys the Or- 
ganization, that endures and makes money for 
employer and employee. 

The next form of Courage is that of Cheerful- 
ness, Hope and Patience of the parents, wives 
and sweethearts, in their efforts to keep the 
home fires burning brightly. 

71 



The But the Courage that commands our silent and 

Buck Up special approval is what is called " Moral 
Book Courage." 

Moral Courage comes from Resolve and 
Reason. 

The Courage that resents some personal in- 
suit, some individual injury, is an everyday 
brand. 

The Courage that will only march when 
cheered by the crowd is common and at last 
is but cowardice. 
Let us emphasis Moral Courage. 
Recently two American soldiers were captured 
a few hours before their company took a small 
town. 

Naturally the American commander was 
deeply concerned in what would happen to 
these boys, and intensely interested in their 
absolute secrecy. 

You know what happens, in this world war, to 
a captured soldier boy who has important in- 
formation. 

The American commander, knowing his two 
boys, assumed that they would be game. It is 
evident that they died with the truth under 
their tongues. 

Being firm in a just cause while the cold, 
pointed steel is being pressed into your body 
is Moral Courage. 

I consider the act of these two boys one of 
72 



the independent sparks from the very Throne The 
of Moral Courage. Buck Up 

The Souls of these two soldiers, wherever they Book 
may be, go marching on. 

The Buck Up Book would fail in its purpose 
should the subject of Courage end here. 
The authors' ambition is to inspire individuals, 
to Encourage Courage to go onward and up- 
ward. 

And the way to get men and women to go for- 
ward is to reason with them with reference to 
getting discouraged. 

To have a weakening of confidence, to get the 
blues, to be dejected, to get discouraged, is 
human, perfectly human. 

Discouragement is as necessary to man as a 
thunderstorm is to air. All success — and we 
would all be balloonists. 

Since the beginning of the world, it has so 
happened to humans that every man has had 
his adverse seasons, his opposite hours. 
When discouragement holds out its cold, hard 
hand — when its voice speaks with its stern, 
harsh note — all you can do, all you probably 
will do, is to let discouragement have the 
floor. 

It is natural, normal, to get discouraged; but 
don't let the season of discouragement stick 
around too long. 

73 



The Another thing: If there is anybody to wit- 

Buck Up ness your weakness, brace up, Buck Up. 
Book Suffer in silence in order that you may not spill 
the beans for the other fellow. Smile like the 
cat that swallowed the robin. 
Every human owes respect to the rights and 
interest of other humans, of society, of family 
and of the organization of which he or she is 
a member. 

What right have you to let your mental con- 
dition warp the minds of others? 
If you refuse to Buck Up, cheer up, keep up 
for your own sake, Buck Up for the sake of 
others. 




74 



THE BABY 



New moral motives, new business aims 
follow the arrival of the Baby. Every 
letter I get from Clarence J. Strouss be- 
gins and ends with a thought of "The 
Baby." 



A little boy was playing in the street, 
the other day, when some one inquired of 
him: " Say, boy, don't you ever get 
angry? " 

The lad looked up and replied : " I try 
not to get mad, 'cause when I do I don't 
have so much fun." 




A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, 
nights longer, bank rolls smaller. Home Hap- 
pier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten and 
the future Worth Living For. 

OME women look upon a new- 
born baby with strange and in- 
explainable emotions. 
Some women look upon a little 
two-day-old tot with envy of 
possession. For, you know, 
the Bravest Battle has been fought by the 
women that have lived Alone. 
I have seen a bachelor look upon the face of a 
baby with an offer in his countenance of a mil- 
lion dollars if he could honorably own the kid. 
The baby is a peculiar little bundle. It speaks 
no language and still it is a native of all coun- 
tries. 

The baby has been described as two feet of 
coo and wriggle, scream and twist, filled with 
suction and testing apparatus for milk, and an 
automatic alarm to regulate supply. 
We kiss a baby, and then we look around to 

77 



The impress others with our capacity to love. Si- 

Buck Up lently we wipe off the slobber. 

Book The baby is a World Necessity, a nuisance for 
neighbors, and the one thing that will make a 
house a home. 

The baby employs more female help than any 
other human. It lives in Lapland and can be 
heard almost any night as far as Scotland. 
A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, 
nights longer, bank rolls smaller, Home Hap- 
pier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten and 
the future Worth Living For. 




78 



ANN HATHAWAY'S HUSBAND 



Ann Hathaway's husband is a subject 
that should put wings to several valu- 
able thoughts. 

" To live in our vital individuality," J. J. 
Goldman says, "means much." 



Each day I thank my lucky stars that I 
am compelled to Work. Should success 
sentence me to retirement, I shoidd be a 
Most Miserable Man. 




The world, in its coming centuries, will have 
time in which to make discoveries, but you, my 
friend, have none too much time in which to 
become Worth Discovering. 



INN HATHAWAY, at the age 
of twenty-six, married a boy 
of eighteen. The lad was the 
son of English parents who 
could neither read nor write. 
At the age of fifty-two, Ann's 
husband died. This was three hundred and 
two years ago. 

When Ann Hathaway's husband died, the 
greatest Genius of our world died. 
The Intellectual Miracle of all time, the sage 
and seer of human nature, died. 
Then was buried the greatest Moral Philoso- 
pher since the two Testaments. 
And still, in the little town where this man 
lived he was scheduled as a Servant. Some 
folks were so small as to call him " A Sturdy 
Vagabond." 

From this man the world received its richest 
rewards in Thought and in Action. 

8i 



^^^ In all his many-colored views of writing, it 

Buck Up never once occurred to him to construct a 
Book thought in which a wife's lover should be 

jealous of her husband. And, you know, this 
man was constantly writing of wives, hus- 
bands and sweethearts. 

In all his works he was himself lost to view. 
His characters lived and died, with all the vir- 
tues and vices, with all the fears, hopes and 
hatreds, with all the customs, theories and su- 
perstitions of the human brain and the human 
heart. 

Out of the unfathomable depths of his mar- 
velous mind he supplied the world with ad- 
vance thoughts that will march miles and 
miles Ahead of the coming centuries. 
What he said then is more than true now, and 
will be forever and forever true to Nature and 
to Human nature. 

The power of his invention made borrowing 
from the writers who had lived before him 
quite unnecessary. He did not write from 
rule, but his writing now stand as the rule. 
By his noble extravagance of fancy he led the 
superstitious reader's imagination far past the 
support of reason and into the presence of 
ghosts and their solemn speeches. 
This Supermind that belonged to Ann Hath- 
away's husband knew every cavern and every 
82 



cliff of the brain, knew all the currents and The 

tides of the Human Heart. He knew men, Buck Up 

women and their silent partners better than Book 

they knew themselves. 

In *' Antony and Cleopatra " one can see the 

slow-moving Nile run through the theme. 

Even the great Sphinx casts its shadow over 

the sands. 

In " Julius Caesar " the Eternal City rises from 

the mighty ruins, and the eyes of the audience 

are carried to the Orient. 

Ann Hathaway 's husband lived Every life, in 

his imagination. 

He lacked the finish of education, but this very 

fact made it possible for him to leap beyond 

the bounds of the educated. 

Education without Capacity, and you have an 

empty cask. 

This man heard Memnon's morning song, 
where marble lips were smitten by a sultry 
sun — and all in his vivid Imagination. 
He crawled into the narrow cave with the cold 
clay of man. Then he resurrected his abnor- 
mal mind, and through his lips he whispered 
the suffocating doubts of the condemned. 
He felt the pangs of every Hell on earth and 
in the earth. He pictured the beauties of 
every conceivable Heaven here or hereafter. 
From the tragic depths of Universal Death to 

83 



The the shallow reefs of Riotous Life, he reflected 

Buck Up humans in their every antic, every act. 
Book This man was so many-formed in his mental 

capacity that he resembled the variety of fast- 
moving clouds and their constantly changing 
colorings. 

His heart sang all the Songs, and his eyes had 
been bathed with every bitter Tear. His 
noons and nights of success and failure were 
constantly coming, constantly going. 
Ann Kathaway's husband had no Equal, nor 
will he have a Second. 

He was " an intellectual ocean whose waves 
touched all the shores of thought, and from 
which all rivers, isles and continents of the 
world of thought receive their dew and rain." 
Now let me see if I can make this picture of 
Ann Hathaway's husband serve you with more 
than simple interest: 

Blessed be the man that finds his distaff, that 
knows his own spindle. Blessed be the man 
that Sticks to his Last. 
Ann Hathaway's husband Stuck to his Last. 
He would have made a poor merchant, an un- 
successful manufacturer or a second-rate sales- 
man. 

He found what he Fitted into ; and he Stuck to 
his Job, and made a success of his Job. 
And now let us place the emphasis of my point 

84 



in the right direction : ^Ae 

It is not so much, What do you Want to do? -^ucA: Up 
as What can you Best do ? Book 

Life and its successes is wholly a question of 
Individual Fitness. 

The world, in its coming centuries, will have 
time in which to make discoveries, but you, my 
friend, have none too much time in which to 
become Worth Discovering. 
In the future the world will require the Quali- 
fied. 

For what are you Qualified ? 
You can never be a Shakespeare. 



85 



Remembrance is the Rosemary of Life; 

kindness to the living is the golden chain 

that holds us humans together. 

Let us respect the memory of the Dead, 

but above all things let us be kind to the 

Living. 

Give Me the flowers Now. 



HOME HAPPINESS 



Let's coin a new word: "Sunsense." 
Sunsense means that a man sees the 
bright spots in Life — has sense enough 
to appreciate the Sunshine. 
The lidless eye of God is always shining 
for this Sunsense man. There is no black 
night of despair for him. He sees 
pleasure; and it is a pleasure to see him. 
The Sunsense man believes in his neigh- 
bor, willingly helps his friend, and always 
boosts his own town. 
His Life is lived out in the open day. If 
it should rain, he recognizes the necessity 
of water for saving the crops. 
The only clouds the Sunsense man can 
see are high in the heavens and swiftly 
moving on. 





In the last act of a beautiful play by a French 
author, there is a wonderful thought about 
husbands and wives who forgive. It is this: 
" Happiness is so precious " (the French author 
says) " to some of us that, when it is broken, 
we stoop and gather up the pieces." 

I HEN a woman loves, she will 
forgive almost anything. 
When a man admires, he sel- 
dom forgets anything. 
Man is a peculiar animal. 
Man willingly and frequently 
forgets the mistakes of a man friend, but he 
stubbornly refuses to forgive the one that is 
more than a friend. 

It takes a big and a brave man to Forgive the 
one that is more than a friend. And now the 
question comes up: Do we expect too much 
of each other? 

Sex to the last, a woman will Hug the of- 
fender and Forgive the offense. 
A man seems to hold delightful communion 
with some really forgivable fault and, when 
defense for his own position is needed, out 

89 



comes the record, with all its Defects, and is 
flaunted in the face of the more than friend. 
The talent of human nature is to go from one 
extreme to the other. With this fact always 
before us, why expect Angels on Earth? 
When you want to know just what is in the 
mind of another, examine closely Your Own 
Thoughts; for be it known, human nature is 
more conspicuous for its sameness than for its 
originality. 

In the last act of a beautiful play by a French 
author, there is a wonderful thought about 
husbands and wives who forgive. It is this: 
" Happiness is so precious " (the French 
author says) " to some of us that, when it is 
broken, we stoop and gather up the pieces." 




go 



THE STAR OF DESTINY 



Destiny, the scapegoat which man 
makes responsible for all his mishaps. 
At least, this was the impression gamed 
from a talk with N. R. Hopkins, my 
friend. 



Out West there is a man totally blind. 

He is forty-eight years old. He earns his 

living by washing windows and scrubbing 

floors. He does his work by a system of 

mental measurements and a sense of 

touch. There is nothing in his work to 

indicate his disability. 

Milton, Dante, Homer — all blind. 

And you, Mr. Reader — well, strong and 

living in America with all your friends 

— you ask me for help. 

What you are, what you hope to be, rests 

wholly with you. 

Do not plead for a pension; Work for 

Prosperity. Blind men do. 




Destiny cannot send man anywhere. Thumb 
over the pages of history and you will find that 
defeat is nothing but wavering feebleness, or 
lack of Strength, somewhere, at some vital time. 

lESTINY is defined as a pre- 
determined state. It is Fate; 
Lot; Doom. Destiny, accord- 
ing to the highest authority, is 
a resistless power or agency; 
the Foreordained Future. 
Thackeray, Disraeli, Shakespeare, Longfel- 
low, Voltaire and so many more great minds 
all refer to Destiny. 

Goldsmith says : " We are all sure of two 
things, at least : we shall suffer and we shall all 
die." 

Bryant insists that no man or woman born, 
coward or brave, can shun his Destiny. 
Voltaire writes this thought : " Everything 
is done by immutable laws, and Destiny is al- 
ready recorded." 

George Eliot asked this question : " Can man 
or woman choose duties? No more than they 
can choose their birthplace or their father or 
mother." 

93 



The Shakespeare insists : " What Fates impose, 

Buck Up that man must needs abide/* 

Book In the presence of these great thinkers, marvel- 
ous philosophers, you would not expect a 
small man like me to doubt the irrevocable 
command of Destiny. 

The Buck Up Book emphatically denies, posi- 
tively contradicts the power of Destiny — the 
existence of " a resistless power or agency " 
other than God — and no one worth while will 
contradict this world-established Truth. 
You may ask for bigger and better authority 
than my word. Let me loan you a thought 
from Bulwer-Lytton. It seems to be a crush- 
ing blow to Destiny: 

*' It is Destiny — phase of the weak human 
heart; a dark apology for every error. The 
strong and the virtuous admit no Destiny. 
On earth, guides conscience; in heaven, 
watches God. And Destiny is but the phan- 
tom we evoke to silence the one, to dethrone 
the other." 

Destiny cannot send man anywhere. Thumb 
over the pages of history and you will find 
that defeat is nothing but wavering feeble- 
ness, or lack of Strength, somewhere, at some 
vital time. 

What the author is trying to establish in your 
mind is this fact; Most humans misconstrue 

94 



the meaning of the English language. 
The author is convinced that the great think- 
ers employed the word " Destiny " for con- 
venience sake. 

They took the poetical license in their teeth 
and ran away with the word. 
They attached too much importance to an 
Impotent Idea. 



The 

Buck Up 
Book 




95 



When old Noah began building his boat, 
the landlubbers, the frog-pond croakers, 
called him crazy. They proclaimed that 
the ship carpenter was off his base. 
Those harpers and critics said old Noah 
was a bug. 

They said that the very fact he was build- 
ing an Ark would bring on a flood. 
Preparation would start something. 
Some time after that, and while Captain 
Noah sat on the bow of his boat, his 
self-respect seemed to increase, and he 
often wondered just what had become of 
his Critics. 



THE EARNEST MAN 



Environment includes so much! Envir- 
onment is surrounding conditions, forces. 
When you consider that environment 
means the aggregate of all external influ- 
ences, you are certainly taking in some 
Territory. 

Blood may tell a lot, but I have known a 
peach tree to bear fine plums. 
So much can be done with nature and 
with human nature by grafting! 
Never walK with a man who refuses to 
be large. Rub elbows with the doers of 
Real things. Steer clear of the dead 
ones. If you sympathize with dead ones, 
send them a check, but never let their 
morbid Influence get under your skin. 
No man can improve himself in any 
society that lacks the restraining influ- 
ence of self-respect, self-help. 
Neither is it best for a man to assemble 
only with men of his own calling. Get a 
variety of experiences. It gives you a 
New Angle on the way you work. 
Climb to the tonic mountains of Good 
Health. Let your heart go high with 
Hope. Drink deeply of the spring of In- 
spiration, and steer clear of the back 
barnyard pool. 

Avoid men who Fear and women who are 
Jealous. 

Environment either Energizes or Ener- 
vates. 




The earnest man sustains hope among his as- 
sociates, makes light of difficulties, and gives 
Endurance to those about him. 
Blessings on the bean of the Earnest Man! 

[EN of enthusiasm are always 
appointed. We figure them 
big. Men of enthusiasm are 
almost always featured, yet I 
have known many of these 
men who missed the mark by 
a mile. 

Let us compare enthusiasm with earnestness. 
The earnest man seldom Fails to find Success. 
Enthusiasm is a very big word in business, but 
earnestness is the Passport to permanency. 
The Silent Partner has great faith in the en- 
thusiastic man and a lot of faith in the Earn- 
est Man. 

The earnest man may not achieve the unheard 
of or the miraculous. He may not overwhelm 
all obstacles and have a torchlight parade. 
He may not engulf competition and put it on 
the blink; but give him sufficient time and 
equal support, and you will Always find him 

99 



The where you have reason to expect him — On 

Buck Up the Job ! 

Book There is no virtue so much needed in this 

world as earnestness. 

Single-handed earnestness inspires double- 
handed co-operation of employees. 
One steady, sturdy, honest soul will bring 
more Success to a business than half a dozen 
hop, skip and jump members of the organiza- 
tion. 
« The earnest man helps to pay Dividends. 

He is the bedrock result getter. 




100 



THE MIND AND MEDICINE 



Anger is one of man's most flagrant 
faults. Anger is practical foolishness. 
Anger is not argument, neither is it an 
evidence of Power. 

Reason is as far from anger as Pottstown 
is from Potsdam. 

Anger is a surface madness and not a 
down-deep resentment. 
Anger is usually the answer to some 
small displeasure and more often ends in 
Repentance. 

Getting riled, getting provoked, getting 
incensed and then flying off the handle is 
a passion that never pays. 
Review the results of the past and you 
will find that all accomplishment worth 
while was brought about while you were 
in a mental poise. 

Anger poisons the body, queers the 
nerves, weakens the intellect and withers 
the Soul. 

Getting angry will eventually put the 
death rattle in your throat. Anger will 
put a crimp in your cash balance and 
finally take you from yourself. 
Let a man be wrong and fail to admit 
it, and the very first thing he will do is 
to get angry. 

Anger is outside evidence of inside Weak- 
ness. 

Anger seldom, if ever, accomplishes its 
purpose, but always recoils, hits and 
Hurts the man that loses his Head. 




The Mind is Master until — until the Mind, by 
disease, is 'mastered. In this very fact we find 
the necessity of a science that can step in and 
Nurse and Nourish. 

OAH, the man that made the 
dictionary, Defines disease as 
a derangement or disorder of 
the Mind, of Morals, Char- 
acter or Habits. 
Noah, he took no chances with 
this word. He covered it from soup to finger 
bowl. 

Noah makes it clear that Disease is an altera- 
tion in some function of the body or some of 
its organs, interrupting or disturbing Health. 
Webster remains silent on the subject of 
Morals or Character. Noah builds an Ark 
of Safety around this subject. 
Now that we know what disease is from the 
highest authority in English, why not con- 
sider the word — Cure? 

Cure, according to the same authority is 
restoration of Health from Disease — the 
means of Removal of Evil. 
Here is another opportunity for you to study 

103 



The the word Cure. Ask your Curate what it 

Buck Up means. 

Book Noah next tells us that the Mind is Memory, 
Recollection — that the Mind is a mental 
mood, cast of thought or feeling. He tells 
us that " Mind Cure " is a method or act of 
healing Disease by Mental Action. 
Obviously the question of Disease as related 
to Cure and the Mind has some real reason for 
serious consideration. 

Shakespeare has this to say : "By medicine 
life may be prolonged, yet death will seize 
the doctor too." 

It is my impression that William paid an un- 
intentional tribute to the doctor. 
Longfellow reasons in this manner: "Joy, 
temperance and repose shove the door on the 
doctor's nose." 

Again my contention is that the physician is 
a profoundly Important Factor in the life and 
the health of humans. 

The man who studies nature closely and for 
a long time, the man who understands clearly 
the diseases that assail the human body, the 
man who knows the properties of the human 
body and the remedies that will benefit it 
deserves much More Credit in this world than 
he gets. 
In event of the physician's making a mistake, 

104 



the earth, in its mercy, covers it up. The 

You can never get me even to try to discount Buck Up 
the physician. Book 

It was O. W. Holmes who often went a mile 
past the bounds of reason while clinging 
closely to a fine phrase. 

More than once, Holmes hit a high spot, and 
here is one : " I firmly believe that if the 
whole materia medica could be sunk to the 
bottom of the sea, it would be all the better 
for mankind and all the worse for the fishes." 
Holmes was right. Most men and nearly all 
women take too much Dope. 
A wound will mend much sooner if the Mind 
is hopeful, cheerful. 

Under no circumstances allow your mind to 
dwell on Self-sympathy. 

Let me give you a true story of a soldier who 
was about to die: The hospital physician 
had given up all hope. Suddenly it occurred 
to the soldier that he could not afford to die 
and leave his Wife and two Babies without 
funds. 

This responsibility braced him, and his re- 
solve saved him. He decided not to die. He 
made up his Mind to help the doctor, and he 
did. The doctor could then help him, and he 
did. 

The great business of a man is, after all, to 

105 



The Manage his Mind in such a way that his body 

Buck Up will steer clear of contagion ; that his Nerves 
Book will not be taxed beyond their endurance; 
that his Belly will not be expected to hold two 
quarts of indigestibles — Ice and Intoxicants. 
Witness the marvelous influence of the Mind 
over the body — the sublime dominion when, 
for a time, the Mind can make flesh and 
nerves impregnable, make the body strong and 
the sinews like steel, make a frail body like 
a bridge of almost Unaccountable Strength. 
Witness the tens of thousands of Disciplined 
Minds — Minds of intelligent individuals of 
unquestionable integrity, who believe that 
medicine is Never necessary, and on this be- 
lief they hinge their hope of Living. 
Old Cicero hit the bull's-eye too. Listen: 
" The diseases of the mind are more and more 
destructive than those of the body." 
And now we are coming to My Real Thought : 
The Mind is Master until — until the Mind, 
by disease, is mastered. In this very fact we 
find the necessity of a science that can step in 
and Nurse and Nourish. 

And here the author leaves you with several 
thoughts on the Mind and Medicine. 



1 06 



BE SURE 



Every organization has its Mr. Put-it- 

off-skie. 

The recruiting officer of the Army of 

Failures is officially called " Put-it-off- 

skie." 

To-morrow (when you reach it) will be 

yesterday, if you fail to do the thing that 

day. 

I have watched many men work, and this 

watching process and my own disposition 

have taught me that a large number of 

good men pay dues to the Do-it-later 

Club. 

Putting off important things not only 

steals time, but it clogs the Wheels of 

Business. 

Business, to be a success, must be done 

on regular schedule — service must be 

performed on time. 

The mere delay of a day may not cost in 

cash very much, but who knows when or 

where to Depend on the man that Delays? 




It is your duty as a Leader to know the way 
is open before you go ahead. 

jEFORE you begin, be sure of 
your ground. Napoleon made 
his mistake, and he Paid the 
Price because he did not know 
his ground. 

Napoleon trusted to a guide, 
and when Lacoste answered " No," Napoleon 
ordered Milhaud's cuirassiers ahead. 
What a frightful moment ! 
There was the ravine, unlooked for, yawning 
for the bodies of fifteen hundred men and two 
thousand horses. 

There was a living grave, two fathoms deep, 
with double slopes. 

Victor Hugo, in his description of " The Battle 
of Waterloo," says : " The second rank, the 
third pushed in. Horses reared, fell upon their 
backs and struggled with their feet in the air; 
no hope, no chance was there for retreat. 
The whole living mass of men and animals 

109 



The was a terrible projectile." 

Buck Up The only force left to Crush the English an- 

Book nihilated itself. 

The inexorable ravine could not yield until 
it was filled. The riders and horses rolled in 
together pell-mell, grinding each other, mak- 
ing common flesh in this dreadful gulf; and 
when the grave was full of living and dead, 
the rest Rode Over them and passed on. 
The lesson we learn from this thought is this : 
Accustom yourself to make doubly sure on 
Every Occasion that the way is clear ahead 
before you charge. 

In the womb of to-morrow there may be some 
Obstacle yet unborn that you are to en- 
counter. 

It is your duty as a Leader to know the way 
is open before you go ahead. 
Lacoste was a good guide until the battle of 
Waterloo. 




no 



GREAT MEN 



Discipline is the development of the fac- 
ulties by Instruction and Exercise. It 
is training, whether it be physical, mental 
or moral. 

The habit of Obedience to the demands 
of life is of supreme importance. 
Discipline may seem stern and cruel, but 
this is why Discipline is eventually so 
very kind. 

Lack of discipline has filled our jails, 
crowded our poorhouses and littered the 
lowlands of life with many men that 
might have made good. 
Obedience is the combination that un- 
locks success. The first great Law com- 
mands us to Obey. 

The truth is, the only real Liberty is 
founded in Obedience. 
When a man Obeys the commands of his 
superior officer he finds no time to dispute 
the plans. 

Obedience is the universal Duty and Des- 
tiny. 




The great men of yesterday were great because 
the people of their day were on their knees. 



|T is a general expression or 
conclusion that all great men 
are Dead. 

This is a mistake, Some of the 
greatest are now Living — 
men whose greatness will only 
be exceeded by the greatness to come. 
It is a mistake to go about tearing down old 
tombstones in order to locate great men. 
One of the greatest dangers of modern Amer- 
ica is a tendency to make Miracles out of 
Past Works and belittle or criticize Present 
Achievements. 

The results accomplished in this war will be 
looked upon by coming generations as the 
Most Marvelous in the history of man. 
Why worship at the tomb of Caesar? Why 
weep at the place where the ashes of Solomon 
are scattered? 

If the more recent results of Schwab, Ford, 

113 



The DuPont do not make the memories of the 

Buck Up dead old ones — or the old dead ones — look 
Book like counterfeit coin, my measure of value is 
a mile off. 

The old tops of long ago were Long on whisk- 
ers and Short on electric lights, automobiles 
and the wireless. 

It is enough to make a man laugh to think of 
comparing some of our modern men and their 
Achievements with the old guys who wore a 
G string for an evening dress. 
If the " great men " of long ago were so very 
great, why did they hold up their sleeves so 
many Necessary Inventions? 
The great men of yesterday were great be- 
cause the people of their day were on their 
knees. 




"4 



THE SUREST WAY 



The truest opinion concerning my Man- 
ners will always come from my enemy — 
that is, if I take pains to drain off what 
I know to be Prejudice. 
Therefore, my enemy is my necessary 
Friend — more than a friend; for a friend 
will flatter you into a False opinion of 
yourself. 




Making a success of Life and making a lucceis 
in life are two vastly different viewpoints. 

I HE surest way to avoid Failure 
is to determine Not to fail. 
The only way that you can 
Succeed permanently is to 
work out the details of your 
Determination, intelligently, 
industriously. 

I am not referring to the glare and dazzle of 
dollars, the success that makes fools admired 
or the success that throws a veil over the evil 
deeds of men and their manners. 
My measure of success is a series of small but 
legitimate results that contribute to the good 
of society and to the good of Oneself. 
If you aspire to make money rapidly; if it is 
your ambition to speculate into success. The 
Buck Up Book will be of no service to you. 
Real success is a result of slow growth. 
Few men are willing to pay the price of real 
success — Patience. 

Real success has no special trade, no particular 

117 



The business, no select profession. 

Buck Up What may be considered by one man to be a 
Book success, is often measured by another man as 
a failure. Real success cannot be weighed on 
the scales of cold cash. 

Life is a success. Death is a failure unless 
you have made a success of Life. 
Making a success of Life and making a suc- 
cess in life are two vastly different viewpoints. 
What will it profit you to make a million in 
cash, if, while piling up a few carloads of clam- 
shells, you get hit with the Indian sign of 
locomotor ataxia? 

The possession of the greatest god below the 
sky — money — is an advantage when it 
serves society and serves the individual faith- 
fully and well. 

The largest slaveholder in all the world is the 
wretched, impotent, shining metal — Gold. 
Big men, great men, do not work for mere 
pay. Men like M. L. Parker, of Davenport, 
plan and persevere for the supreme satisfac- 
tion of making a success, not for the mere 
empty reward of making money. 
Little men see success in a big bank roll, and 
these little men make a failure out of life in 
their frantic efforts to get money honestly — 
if they Can — but to get money even though 
they must " Can " honestly. 

ii8 



Money is necessary. So is dirt. The 

The value of a dollar is comparative. It is Buck Up 
more to the world when it pays for education Book 
than when it buys booze. It is more in some 
men's hands than it is in others. 
Money is a Means and not a Measure of Suc- 
cess. 




119 



Health is wealth, and good cheer is cash 

on hand. 

The real millionaire is the man who can 

smile and mean it. 

The most useful, the most successful, men 

in this country have the happy faculty of 

Smiling, and then saying something 

Cheerful. 

I do not mean the grin-smile — the smile 

that the lion wears v/hen he had found a 

way of exit — the smile that is as grateful 

as a dissolving cake of ice. 

I mean the smile that looks like sunshine 

when sunshine breaks through the storm 

clouds on a morning in May. 



DIED WITHOUT THINKING 



Good Humor is the clear, blue sky of the 
soul. Good Humor is good sense, for 
cheerfulness is health and the opposite is 
disease — melancholy. 
The most manifest sign of good health 
and a good heart is continued cheerful- 
ness. 

The grouch is the guy that gets your 
goat. 

If you want to locate the man with kind- 
ness in his heart and sympathy in his 
soul, pause when you bump up against the 
good-natured, good-humored human. 
Good Humor is the bright weather of 
the heart. 

Cheerful, hopeful people refresh you. 
Why not render an extra effort to confer 
the blessings of Good Humor on the 
other fellow? 




Here he lies! Dead he is not, but departed — 
for the provident man Never dies. 

|0 man will stand and stare at 
the fierce light of a burning 
sun. Few men can be cor- 
nered and made to look 
straight into their own Con- 
sciences. 

But I've got you, Friend Reader; got you 
where I want you ; got you before the infallible 
court of Conscience; got you in the presence 
of the always reliable counsel ; got you in the 
chamber of Real justice — got you where you 
must listen to the still, small voice of Con- 
science. 

Conscience is more than a mere spiritual sug- 
gestion — more than a moral law. Con- 
science invades the realm of Individual Re- 
sponsibility. 

Conscience is a clock whose hands are con- 
stantly pointing to the ever-changing hours 
for improving your position in life. Con- 
science is a clock that strikes the hour to do a 

123 



TJic thing — that has the alarm that awakens at 

Buck Up the right hour. 

Book This very hour, Friend Reader, has arrived. 

If Death should open the Great Gate and 
beckon you in, what would you do, or what 
would you be willing to do? 
You would willingly, if it were possible, give 
all you have for another Hour in which to 
close up some important matters — to obey 
the dictates of your own Conscience. 
When Death beckons, you are carried in with- 
out a chance to compromise. 
Knowing this, why do you Hesitate? 
You have an immediate duty to perform, a 
positive work to carry out, and your Con- 
science indicates that I am telling the truth. 
And now to the point: Death is not the ter- 
rible thunder that follows the formidable flash. 
When you hear the thunder you arc safe. 
You have heard my words, and your Con- 
science reaffirms this truth: The man who 
has not neglected to provide for his family, 
after his death, leaves this thought for an 
epitaph: 

Here he lies! Dead he is not, but departed 
— for the provident man Never dies. 
Better your name be written in water than 
have it said: He Died Without Thinking of 
hose he left behind. 

124 



UNCONSCIOUSLY MEASURED 



Pope says: " Act well your part, here all 
honor lies." 

So many men and so many women seem 
to think that one must hold a prominent 
position in life to be entitled to the epau- 
let of honor — that they must wear the 
soldier's uniform! 

The Uttle girl behind the counter, the 
overgrown boy on the delivery wagon, 
the man in overalls and jumper, or the 
woman who wears calico Deserves honor. 
Then again, folks are inclined to look 
upon people who have political honor as 
in a position to be envied. Political 
honor is often as insecure, unstable, as 
that of public opinion upon which pohti- 
cal honor feeds. 

To those who render faithful and efficient 
service in some worthy work, I say all 
Honor. 

Honor is empty unless based on moral 
conscience and honest toil. 
To the salespeople of this country who 
are true to themselves, to the competent 
stenographers or secretaries, to the engi- 
neers and firemen, to the farmers, and to 
everybody, let me repeat the line of Pope: 
" Act well your part, here all honor lies." 




If you would know the Rough Road to Perma- 
nent success, here is my answer: Do the 
First thing First, and then keep right on Doing. 

jERSISTENCY is the thing that 
Wins more than any other one 
thing. 

It often matters little about the 
pole, the line, the hook. 
Sometimes the fish bite with- 
out bait. 

The postage stamp will stick only after you 
lick it. 

It is the steady sticking that carries a man 
where he wants to go. 

The power of purpose, the bulldog tenacity, 
the stick-to-it-iveness of a man is not always 
a good pattern to go by; but I am not con- 
sidering the morals of a man in this article. 
I am just emphasizing the absolute Necessity 
of sticking to a job until you Finish — of get- 
ting Home from Third. 

In a solitary cell, a life convict drew strings 
from his woolen socks, soaked these strings 
with his spittle, and then rubbed these wet 

127 



The strings with grit from the prison floor. After 

Buck Up three years of continuous, steady sawing with 
Book these slender strings, he wore away a prison 

bar and Escaped. 

In a respectable way, in a legitimate business, 
are you ready and willing to make this tre- 
mendous effort to free yourself from Imprison- 
ment? 

All great accomplishments have been per- 
formed by Perseverance rather than by abil- 
ity. 

And this thought opens the Great Gate for 
every man or every woman in America. 
What you lack is Ambition — nine times out 
of ten. 

If you were to ask me to tell you the Royal 
Road to Success, my answer would be: It's 
blocked. 

This sounds rather discouraging until you an- 
alyze my thought. 

Do you want to go over a " royal road? " 
Europe is lined with " royal roads." 
If you would know the Rough Road to 
Permanent Success, here is my answer: Do 
the First thing First, and then keep right on 
Doing. 



128 



THRIFT 



If you have in mind some one thing that 
you would like to accomplish, some po- 
sition that you would like to fill, remem- 
ber the Creator did not make a mind 
capable of planning and of understanding, 
without hands competent to mold these 
thoughts into material form. 




The Temple of Thrift should stand on the 
campus at the left of the College and at the 
right of the Chapel. 

IN" my desk lies a line drawing 
— a picture of a provident man 
descending the stone steps of a 
savings bank. Evidently this 
man is of middle age, of mod- 
erate means, healthy and Hon- 
est. His head is erect, his shoulders square, 
and his general appearance indicates individ- 
ual Worth. The suggestion in this picture 
is that this man has just left a certain sum 
in the savings bank. 

At the foot of the stone steps, and in the shel- 
ter of the great granite pillar, stands a cring- 
ing, half-clad, pitifully poor man. His eyes 
stare, his face is haggard, and he looks cold 
and hungry. Poverty has snuffed out every 
spark of success in this man, and made him 
Desperate. He is a rudderless, hopeless, help- 
less Derelict. 

And the interesting part of this situation is 
that both men started out in early Life with 

131 



The equal advantages; both men came from the 

Buck Up same little town. 

Book One began to save, and the other began to 

spend. Both, for a time, earned the same 
salary. 

Finally the spender was compelled to dodge 
the tailor, the grocer and the butcher. Even- 
tually this man began to lose Self-Confidence, 
later he lost his Pride, and then he lost his 
Position. 

How he spent his money, or where he spent 
it, is not my point. He Spent it, and that is 
enough. 

The other man continually Saved a little, and 
then a little more; and finally this habit of 
saving was permanently formed. Eventually 
this man placed a little money out at interest, 
and his money began to Work for him. 
At last the man with the saving habit became 
what we call " comfortably well off." 
Now, friend reader, there is nothing sensa- 
tional, nothing unreasonable, nothing Uncom- 
mon in a man's becoming " comfortably well 
off." Nor is there anything uncommon in a 
man's going broke. 

This picture is not overdrawn. It is not neces- 
sary to overdraw a picture of thi^ character. 
There are Millions of men — clever men — 
who are mentally unfit, physically unclean, 

132 



and morally out of position, due to Improvi- The 
dence. Buck Up 

Money is the measure of food, of clothing, of Book 
the necessities of life; and the man who fails 
to look out for to-morrow is Dishonest with 
himself, Unfair to his family, and will even- 
tually Fail. 

Saving is more than saving: it more often 
proves a Saving Grace. 

Too much money, or too little money, is a 
sorry situation that can be met successfully 
only by Sensible men. 

Give the average young man plenty of money 
to start with, and you handicap him. Give 
a young man with ambition an opportunity, 
and then teach him to save money, and you 
have laid the foundation for a Permanent 
Success. 

Success all depends on how you start. If 
you begin at the bottom and build on your 
profit, on what you Save, you are creating a 
combination of character, capital and com- 
mercial worth that is of Tremendous Impor- 
tance. 

If you begin at the top of the ladder, without 
experience, but with plenty of inherited capital, 
make up your mind that sooner or later you 
will see the box where they Mix the Mortar. 
Personal Extravagance has encompassed 

133 



The more Defeats than anything I know of. 

Buck Up Prudence points the way to Prosperity. 

Book The improvident, careless, reckless, thought- 

less man is a Personal Failure and a tax on 
others. 

Show me the man with the " saving " habit, 
and I will point to you an Honest Man. 
If the night courts and the day courts are 
crowded with men charged with all the crimes 
on the calendar, and if nine men out of ten in 
these courts are poverty-poor, broken in 
pocketbook, broken in Spirit, what does this 
situation suggest? 

Men are naturally honest. It is the spur of 
old Necessity, the poverty-prod of Want, that 
prompts men to take chances. Necessity and 
Want are not the natural offspring of the 
habit of Saving. 

Poverty lashes a man to the wild horse of 
Don't Care. Want whispers in the ear of a 
weakling and tells him to take a Chance. 
Money in the savings bank gives a man Credit 
in a community — self-confidence. 
Ownership multiplies the ambition for more. 
Poverty Paralyzes Purpose. I am invariably 
stronger with, than without, money. 
In any organization the individual who is for- 
ever borrowing money is constantly exhibit- 
ing a lack of that something which made the 

134 



boss a Success. The 

The Mind cannot work well if fearing failure Buck Up 
or seeing sickness and the dreaded doctor's Book 
bill. The Mind, to do its Best work, must 
be Free from fretting and the frenzied at- 
tacks of Want. 

Take two men. Give them both an equal 
chance. Have one Save money each week. 
Have the other Spend all that he earns, and 
perhaps more. Which man will Produce the 
better Results? 

The man who saves a little money each week 
also saves his energy. He comes to the store, 
to the plant, or goes out on the road, with his 
Mind Right and his Body Right. 
The man who is compelled to rob a child's 
bank for carfare is committing no crime, but 
he is skating mighty close to a Bad Habit 
— robbing a bank. 

Men are creatures of habit. They contract 
certain customs. They are apt to follow the 
line of Least Resistance, and to get into a 
groove, a rut. They keep on in the old jog- 
trot way until they get seasoned to Failure ! 



135 



The greatest instrument of good and the 
most convenient tool for evil is the 
tongue. The tongue is what gets us in 
bad. When you hold your tongue, you 
hold the respect and confidence of the 
wise. 

Lincoln said little, and Grant said less. 
When some gabber would gab, walk in 
the direction of silence; take up your 
tent and move where it's quiet. You 
can't think when the other fellow's 
tongue hangs on a swivel. _ So, you see, 
the tongue has a lot to do with other than 
the talker. 

Washington talked only when necessary. 
Napoleon was as silent as a steam calli- 
ope with a broken boiler. 
Silent men Do things. Talkers undo. 
The more you talk, the less time you have 
to Think — the less time others have to 
Think, 



A CARELESS EPITAPH 



If you start to explore, you are sure to 

find yourself at the end of some unknown 

lane, footsore, weary. 

If you have the good luck to get lost, you 

are sure to learn the character of the 

country as a result of your wanderings. 

Knowledge comes from getting off the 

track, from making mistakes. 

Make mistakes — but Never make the 

same mistake twice. 



Carelessness is inexcusable. It is either dis- 
interest of the Heart or disqualification of the 
Head. 




jRIENDS have asked me to 
write an epitaph on the man 
that is Careless. And, strange 
to say, the man for whom the 
epitaph is to be written still 
lives, still walks in freedom, 
while the didn't-know-it-was-loaded victim is 
as dead as yesterday. 

The careless man has danced down the ages 
with his blindfolded eyes, and as far as I am 
personally concerned he is as Dead as the 
leaves on a painted canvas. 
I would rather live in a henhouse, and be com- 
pelled to claw and paw for a position on the 
roosting pole at night, than have a careless 
employee in my organization and be compelled 
to continue his or her employment. 
Carelessness is inexcusable. It is either dis- 
interest of the Heart or disqualification of the 
Head. 

139 



The I^ other words, a good fellow can become No 

Buck Up Good by simply being careless. 

Book The careless loom up on locomotives and on 
the ledger ; they are found in factories and sup- 
ported in stores. 

You can watch the dishonest, guide the igno- 
rant, coax or drive the lazy; but the careless 
man is the lukewarm loon that looks like a 
Man, walks like a Man — but he " ain't." 
Every organization has the individual who 
" didn't mean to do it " — has the slob who 
" didn't think," and says so after he costs the 
company a lot of money and perhaps a Life 
or two. 

Careless people seldom have anything to give 
to make good for their brain-sick mistakes ; so 
you see how explosive, how expensive, they 
are. 

And now for the Epitaph : 
The individual that is Careless is as impossible 
as mending a broken bell; impractical as to 
attempt to satisfy a hungry lion with a club 
sandwich; impotent as the dead past, and as 
Inefficient as a safety razor at a negro ball. 



140 



A TIP ON COURTSHIP 



You cannot reason in a rage. You can- 
not bjilance vour mental faculties when 
swinging in Suspense. You cannot win 
when you are Worried. You cannot cal- 
culate intelligently while Doubting your 
own position. 

You cannot accumulate while compelled 
to discount a limited income; you cannot 
borrow, beg, bow, and win. 
Quarreling, fighting, passion unfit you. 
Trouble, jealousy, worry unnerve you. 
Poverty, pessimism and pleading paralyze 
you. To Win, a man must enjoy the full 
measure of every faculty; have peace, 
comfort and real mental and physical rest 
in his home. He must have help from his 
Home. 

Take away the inspiration of home and 
its energizing environs, remove this 
moral influence, and you have weighed 
anchor in the face of a gale. 




Don't tell the present girl too much about the 
past ladies. She may give you credit for know- 
ing too much. 

I HE man who has never had a 
Courtship is as blind as a bat; 
while right before his sight- 
less eyes you will find running 
a beautiful river, and on its 
banks you will see long- 
stemmed American beauties all blushing be- 
cause they cannot conceal their bare feet. 
If you get a chance to court a girl, by all 
means court her ; don't Flunk. 
If you stand on the bank and shiver, you will 
be twice as cold as the chap who takes a 
Deep Dive and later tells you the water is 
warm. 

Courting is like the dry-goods business: 
Next season the entire color scheme of dress 
goods may change, and who wants to wear a 
Remnant? 

Always court a girl as you eat ice cream. 
Take your Time and get the full Flavor. 
Fail to enjoy a couple of seasons of courting, 

143 



The and you can never hope to know what Heaven 

Buck Up is until you go hence. 

Book Courting a girl reminds me of two rivulets that 

come dancing down the mountain side, side by 
side. They dash along, dance and murmur, 
sing and splash each other. They go foam- 
ing, frothing, cascading, hiding here and 
there ; and all the way, to them, it's down hill. 
It's first shadows, then sunshine, until at last 
they Meet and Join — and then they go 
slowly. 

And here is the crux of this chapter on Court- 
ing: Don't tell the present girl too much 
about the past ladies. She may give you 
credit for Knowing too much. 




144 



LOST IN THE MOB 



A crowbar will loosen the bulldog's grip, 
but a common mongrel lets his own jaw 
slip. A little man lives on what he calls 
"Luck," the big man on what we call 
"Pluck." 




Big men never recognize Luck, but they do ac- 
cept Law. 

I HE singular thing in life is 
this: All opposition seems to 
lose its substance the moment 
we grapple with it in real 
earnest. 

Benjamin Franklin wheeled all 
the material he had, to start a printing plant 
— wheeled, through the streets of Philadel- 
phia, to his sleeping room, which was his office, 
all the tools he had. 

Just as soon as he got his plant located, he 
called his formidable competitor to his 
" office," and this is about what he said : " If 
you can sleep on a board, live on a crust and 
drink water as a beverage, you can hope to 
destroy my plans for printing a newspaper." 
Mention the name of Napoleon, and Fresh 
Resolution, great promise of performance, 
wonderful personal vigor present themselves. 
Sound the name of Pershing, and a spark sud- 
denly develops into a flame of " I will." 

147 



The The big rewards of life are given not to the 

Buck Up man who goes the greater distance, but to the 
Book man who overcomes the greater handicap. 

Providence puts in a man's path Hazards and 
Handicaps — not to punish the man, but to 
Prepare the man. 

Suffering, storms, hostiUties, disaster are all 
dealt out to try the mettle of the man, to 
rouse the man's faculties, to school his pas- 
sions. 

Temptations and trials are but part of a liberal 
education. When the world hands you one 
of its rude jolts, accept the discipline as a 
chapter in the Book of Knowledge. 
Never for one instant lean back and declare 
that you are out of Luck ! 
Big men never recognize Luck, but they do 
accept Law. 

The big man considers wisely, resolves firmly, 
executes with inflexible purpose — and exe- 
cutes promptly. 

The small man hesitates, trusts to Luck — and 
is lost in the Mob ! 




THE LONG PROMISER 



It is perfectly natural for some people to 
be constantly telling their troubles. For 
tlie moment, these sympathy solicitors 
get reserved seats in our hearts, but after 
they move on we cannot help feeling that 
they are Weak and Selfish. 
Every man has his own fish to fry; every 
person his own web to weave, his own 
struggles, difficulties, handicaps. We all 
find stubborn, trying, refractory situa- 
tions. 

Few men care to listen to the other fel- 
low's troubles. 

There is no clear sailing for anybody. 
There are quicksands, breakers, shoals, 
for all of us. 

Every human is beset with critical, tick- 
lish, embarrassing, perplexing difficulties. 
Tell your troubles to the chattering mon- 
keys in the zoo. 




If you want to please another, do something 
Worth While and then deliver the worth-while 
something and let the receiver do the talking. 

)ONG, long before this, you 
have met the Long-Promiser. 
The long-promiser is omni- 
present. The woods are full 
of him. The Long-Promiser 
is the individual that is always 
going to do something for you some time in 
the near future. 

A Long-Promiser seldom performs. He is 
like a false fire to an old-fashioned cannon 
— it dischargeth a good expectation with a 
bad report. 

It is adding insult to injury to promise some- 
thing and then fail to produce, unless — unless 
you have a Good Excuse. 
A long promise sounds like bullycon. Why 
underwrite some understanding unless you 
mean to carry it through? Why promise a 
friend anything? Do the thing for a friend 
and then the promise is unnecessary. 
A long promise is pretty poor evidence of 
down-deep sincerity to serve. 

151 



Xhe If you want to please another, do something 

Buck Up worth while, and then deliver the worth-while 
Book something and let the receiver do the talking. 
I have, at the moment, a man in mind that 
collects a check of me every month for a serv- 
ice that is indeed small. Just before the regu- 
lar time for this check I always get a " hint," 
and accompanying this hint, as a postscript, 
is a long promise, either with words or in 
writing. My Long-Promiser friend promises 
he will do something for me very soon. 
Do something? Leached lime and tobacco 
dust! Fertilizer! 




152 



WHEN WE WERE BOYS 



In order to do constructive work, a hu- 
man must have an individual incentive — 
must be personaUy interested in the ent- 
erprise, in the ehort on hand. 
This is a lav/ of human nature, and when 
you run contrary to human nature you 
spill the beans. 

Work is not what some folks think it is. 
Work is an opportunity by which you 
are expected to show what you can actu- 
ally accomplish. 

People are paid to-day on a basis of re- 
sults and not on a basis of long Prom- 
ises, long Pedigrees or a strong Pull. 




It is not my purpose to turn the Leaves of 
Memory to a page of the Past, where naught 
but dead garlands cover the mounds. It is 
my plan to bring back Boyhood's Happy Days. 

}IME, with its wings, flies on 
insensibly and so deceives us 
that we are compelled to pause 
in order to really understand 
how long ago it was that we 
were boys. 

It is not my purpose to turn the Leaves of 
Memory to a page of the Past, where naught 
but dead garlands cover the mounds. It is my 
plan to bring back Boyhood's Happy Days. 
Let me take you back to the pioneer pleasures 
that we freckle-faced boys enjoyed. Back to 
the time when James Whitcomb Riley was a 
boy, back to when the frost was on the 
" punkin " — back to " when we ust to be so 
happy and so pore.'* 

Let me take you back in your memory to the 
new-mown hay. Back to the fields of clover. 
Back to the frost-cracked chestnuts and the 
fire-cracked yellow corn. 

155 



The Yes, let's you and I go back to the time when 

Buck Up Riley " ust " to be so happy and so " pore." 
Book And here is the way to take you back — back 

to the days when you were a lad and would 
look through the back lots for two hours on a 
cold September morn ; barefoot — look for 
that blamed brindle cow that was lost. 
I can see, in my memory, Guilford R. Adams 
dressed in knee pants — pants held by one 
single denim-strap suspender slung over his 
left shoulder — a big Responsibility on a 
shingle-nail fastner. 

And this reminds me of a bit of verse that I 
saw recently: 

Two ladies gay met a boy one day. 

His legs were briar-scratched ; 
His clothes were blue, but a nut-brown hue 

Marked the place where his pants were 
patched. 
They bubbled with joy at the blue-clad boy. 

With his spot of nut-brown hue. 
"Why didn't you patch with a color to 
match?" 

They chuckled ; *' Why not in blue ? 
Come, don't be coy, my blue-brown boy. 

Speak out," and they laughed with glee. 
And he blushed rose-red while he bashfully 
said: 

" That ain't no patch ; that's me ! " 

156 




AFTERWORD 

MERSON said: "No sensi- 
ble person ever made an apol- 

ogy." 

It is the author's contention 
that few explanations explain 
— that an apology is an ac- 
knowledgment of some shortcoming. 
It is not my intention to apologize for the sin- 
cere frankness of this book. Those who un- 
derstand my motives will consider dn apology 
unnecessary. 

Those who regard my work as brutally blunt 
will never forgive me; so why justify or 
apologize, why try to justify? 
In presenting this effort to encourage, to en- 
thuse — to get humans to think up, brush up, 
Buck Up — there is no necessity for defense. 
The book is its own defense. 
Every line in this work was written with a 
smile in the author's heart for You. 
So let's shake hands and always be Friends. 

157 



THE SILENT PARTNER 
SCRAP BOOK 

THE SILENT PARTNER SCRAP BOOK is a choice selection of 
the thoughts you would like to take with you down into the 
Valley of Time. 

I have tried, in THE SILENT PARTNER SCRAP BOOK, to crowd 
between its covers every evidence possible of my most earnest 
and enthusiastic work. 

It's a pleasure-bearing, radiant, genial remembrance that will last 
long after my name is forgotten: for I have not tried to make this 
book ME; I have battled to make it all YOU. 

THE SILENT PARTNER SCRAP BOOK contains about forty 
articles, including " What is Holding You Back? " (over a mil- 
lion copies of this article have been printed), and " The Rosary," 
where both kissed the cross. 

To sum it all up in a few words, I believe that the deeper thq 
convictions, the firmer the beliefs, the less it is necessary to 
demonstrate, by an expression of these beliefs, these convictions. 
For this reason, I wiU ask you to believe me when I say that 
THE SILENT PARTNER SCRAP BOOK is a book that you will 
be proud of. 

F. D. VAN AMBURGH, 

The Author. 

Done de luxe, limp-leather binding, deckle-edged, gilt top, printed 
in two colors, mailed in a suitable box, all for $2.50. 

Done in cloth, gilt name, printed in two colors, deckle-edged, 
mailed in a paper box, all for $1.25. 

Remember: Not sold by dealers — By mail only. 

Address: Van Amburgh (The Silent Partner), 
200 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 



BY THE SIDE 
OF THE ROAD 

BY THE SIDE OF THE EOAD is a book in which I have tried 
to bring back the sunbeams of the South, the snow-caps of the 
North, the teeming marts of the crowded East and the great bills 
of the vast Alone. 

In this book I have tried to make my thoughts bigger and broader 
than any single street — tried to touch the Octaves in human 
Activities and the lost chord in Human Hearts. 

Briefly, I have tried to give expression to the thoughts that will 
work in Everyday Life — thoughts that will help humans up the 
hill. I have tried to introduce enough Enthusiasm and Energy, 
with words, to make the book wanted. And then it was all bound 
with the lavender ribbon of Remembrance and Good Will. 

Over forty subjects — including two particular subjects that have 
stood the acid Test of Time: " December," an article that deals 
with the great Emotions of Life; and the subject, " His Mother," 
a lofty appreciation of the author's intended tribute to a Grand 
Old Woman. 

P. D. VAN AMBUEGH, 

The Author. 

Done de luxe, limp-leather binding, deckle-edged, gilt top, printed 
in two colors, mailed in a suitable box, all for $2.50. 

Done in cloth, gilt name, printed in two colors, deckle-edged, 
mailed in a paper box, all for $1.25. 

Remember: Not sold by dealers — By mail only. 

Address: Van Amburgh (The Silent Partner), 
200 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 



THE BUCK UP BOOK 

THE BUCK TTP BOOK is before you. In style of liliidliig, print- 
ing and general make-up It is an exact pattern of THE SILENT 
FABTNEB SCBAP BOOK (see announcement on previous page). 
THE BUCK UP BOOK is an exact mechanical reproduction of my 
otber book, BY THE SIDE OF THE BO AD (see announcement on 
previous page). 

Books published by Van Amburgh (The Silent Partner) are not 
sold by book dealers or by book agents. AU books must be or- 
dered direct from The Silent Partner Company. 
THE BUCK UP BOOK is for humans who have taken the vrong 
fork in the road; for those who have wandered into the cemetery 
of lost Hope, looking for the marker of an almost forgotten Friend. 
This book is written to the Discouraged — to the dried, cold 
hearts of humans who are trying to Begin Again. 
THE BUCK UP BOOK is to get you to forget self-pity, to cause 
you to stop wishing, and to go to fishing. It is to get you to look 
up, think up, brush up. Buck Up, and In this condition yon will 
be able to keep up. 

It is trying, with words, to get you to advertise that you are ft 
success, for remember this: Whatever yon think you are woith, 
Is about what the world will pay. 

F. D. VAN AMBURGH, 

The Author. 

Done de luxe, limp-leather binding, deckle-edged, gilt top, printed 
In two colors, mailed in a suitable box, aU for $2.50. 

Done in cloth, gilt name, printed in two colors, deckle-edged, 
mailed in a paper box, all for $1.26. 

Remember: Not sold by dealers — By mail only. 
Address: Van Amburgh (The Silent Partner), 
200 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 



W 18 










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